Steamboat briefs: Quarterly oil, gas lease sale is planned for Feb. 9

The next quarterly oil and gas lease sale in Colorado is Feb. 9, according to a Bureau of Land Management news release. Six parcels within the Little Snake Field Office (three in Moffat County and three in Routt County) are being offered as well as two geothermal parcels in Gunnison County. The deadline for submitting protests for the lease sale is 4 p.m. Monday. Protests should be sent to the BLM Colorado State Office, 2850 Youngfield St., Lakewood, CO 80215.

Still time to enter Hayden Tour of Lights on Dec. 22

Judging for the annual Hayden Tour of Lights will take place at 6 p.m. Dec. 22. Winners in categories including most religious, most voltage, most creative spirit and most unusual each will be awarded $100. Call 970-276-2199 to be added to the list. Anyone 55 or older who would like to help judge should meet at 5:45 p.m. at the Haven Community Center for a free bus ride. The Tour of Lights contest is sponsored by the Hayden Chamber of Commerce and Yampa Valley Electric Association.

Community Holiday Party is Tuesday at Howelsen

The 34th annual free Community Holiday Party is from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Howelsen Hill. The event, which is sponsored by the city of Steamboat Springs, includes tubing on Howelsen Hill, snow conditions permitting. A limited number of tubes will be available. Attendees may bring their own tubes, but no metal runners or sleds are allowed. There also will be caroling and visits with Santa Claus. Cookies, hot cocoa and apple cider will be served in Olympian Hall. For more information, call Brooke Lightner at 970-879-4300, ext. 355.

So there are two close to South Routt,COC75186,and possibly the area where the oil tank explosion was in 2007,before the Dunkley Pass area,which is in the Flattop Wilderness Area, left turn off to Chapmans Resevoir , and on the right are oil facilitys.At the time of the explosion the nearby creek was a risk, as the berm was not large enough to handle that size tank.Now the road to the facility is closed off from traffic with a forest service gate.But there is lots of camping ,hunting and fishing in that area.
Another one is COC75185 and it seems to be at Haybro in Oak Creek Canyon and about 1 mile from the Creek(131) on the right as you drive north on 131 to Steamboat.
COC75188 is almost to the Wyoming border,Slater Creek and Beaver Creek nearby.
COC75187 is like 4 miles east of Elkhead but farther north and that it a very large operation.
The BLM site stated"As part of recent reforms to the federal oil and gas lease programs,BLM now conducts additional reviews of parcels proposed for quarterly oil and gas lease sales, and provides the public with multiple opportunities to review and comment on the proposals."
Enviormental Reviews available :Go to BLM website to comment
David Boyd is the BLM contact for public affairs 970-876-9008

I dont think that any additional activity for oil and gas should ever happen in the Flattop Wilderness area.It's in Rio Blanco County,Medicine Bow National Forest,managed by Yampa Forest Station, the Rio Blanco County Sheriff.It unaccessable over Dunkley Pass in the winter from Meeker sheriff,and over an hour to drive to the site by theofficers.Our county residents from Hayden,Steamboat ,and South Routt all go up for recreation to the Flattops at Dunkley Pass.It is only 20 minutes from Phippsburg.If someone is hurt,Oak Creek must handle it.Also leaving a burden of haz mat clean up to South Routt Emergency Responders?Who are our emergency responders for chemical spills up there?Are the trucks going to be using County Road 15 above my home also?
The creek that could be polluted by the facilitys flows into the Yampa at Phippsburg at my property,GREAT.I thought living at the edge of a Wilderness area would be a great place because it could never be changed,What is going on?

Great news Cathy. I just read about a way you can stop these oil lease sales from becomming oil producing...

Go to the sale, be the highest bidder and buy those leases!

And don't worry if you haven't the money... Just send out a note to all the other county's concerned citizens and you guys can all go in together and purchase those leases. Then you can save that area from oil.

Sound unreasonable? That's what you are asking the current owners to do.

Oh we will just see now wont we Sled?Are we to just lay down and take a good fracking like good stupid people?It's all about money?Nope ,its about a Wilderness Area,and the people of this whole nation own it already,not for sale! A Wilderness area with oil and gas is not" wild" anymore,duh....

So you are fine with oil production except in Wilderness areas, Cathy?
Or is the Wilderness just the handy "excuse-dejour"?

You wish to stop others from buying and "spoiling" something you claim to hold dear and you are welcome to participate in the auction; yet you have no intention of spending your own money to protect that which you claim to cherish so?
Is that about right?

Actually spidermite, I stated that solution several weeks ago when sun started spewing her nonsense about the drilling on Wolf Mountain. My post WAS the original. You should check it out. Still think I need to be more original?

I'm just trying to be helpful here and not insulting in any way, but I've thought that sun may be a candidate for a teaching position at oneworld's reeducation camp. I've already decided my 5th grader would be a good addition to the camps teaching team as well, after learning about energy at school. We found out from him that the sun's energy is free and and clean. Well yes that's true, but when you want to harness that free clean energy it becomes very expensive and dirty. He wouldn't back down and kept insisting that solar is free and solar panels come from the store. Yes, solar panels come from the store, where they apparently grow them.
Yep, for the anti-energy people and for my son, who has since gone to the lizard reeducation camp,, solar panels come from the store, electricty comes from an outlet, and tourists are just magcally there to spend money and provide jobs.